Virgins, Saints & Angels

 

By Deb Peterson

 One upon a time there were 3 girls in Mountain Home who became goddesses.

Once upon a time there was a Mountain Home girl who went to work in her basement every day, packing boxes for her sister. She wore sweatpants. No makeup, no hair style. Three kids. She was Cinderella.

Except she has a nice sister.

Her name is Louise Blackmon, and unlike Cinderella, her sister provided her with a glass slipper in the form of jewelry, and taught her just how powerful it is to tap into your inner goddess.

Louise’s sister, Cheryl Finnegan, who likes to be called Finn, left a career in marketing with Levi Strauss & Co. after 14 years and moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico “for a change.” Intrigued by the folklore there, she started designing accessories with elements from Mexican and religious iconography using metals, paper, glass, resin, and beads—a keychain, a belt buckle, a necklace.

She called her company Virgins Saints & Angels. Finn’s designs made their way out into the world, and people loved them.
Then one day, John Galliano, head designer of French fashion companies such as Givenchy and Christian Dior, wore VSA on the runway at a Paris show.

Celebrities around the globe started showing up in the pages of magazines like Elle, Style, Vogue, Town & Country, The New York Post, and People wearing VSA—Lady Gaga, Rhianna, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Tim McGraw, Maria Shriver, Usher, David Beckham, Miley Cyrus—the list is long.

One Christmas, Finn visited Cinderella, er, Louise, in Mountain Home.

“Sweep the hearth!” Finn demanded.

No, she really didn’t. Quite the contrary.

Louise is Finn’s distributor. Every piece of VSA jewelry, which is handcrafted in either Mexico or Rhode Island, comes to Mountain Home where it is lovingly packaged in gorgeous boxes with handwritten care notes and sent off to boutiques and individual buyers around the world. That is what was happening in Louise’s basement.

“She would start her day in sweatpants, and end her day in sweatpants, with no makeup and not a care for her hair,” Finn says.

“She was too shy to call a store about a shipment. She is the most organized, intelligent, and good-humored person you could imagine. So why didn’t she have the confidence to make this call?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to be comfy?” was Louise’s defense.

Finn came up with a scheme. She took Louise and the sisters’ two daughters to Little Rock to attend a ballet, but first, they did a little shopping.

“I surprised Louise with a spree,” Finn says. “We bought designer jeans, sweaters, coats, shoes—it was just like Pretty Woman.”
The sisters cleaned out Louise’s closet and restocked it.

A few months later, Louise joined Finn in Los Angeles for an event.

“She showed up wearing yet another adorable dress,” Finn says. “She was styling! She stuck to her promise and dressed every day, and it resonated through the rest of her life. She had confidence in her work. Phone calls were no longer stressful. Her entire family felt the difference.”

“I felt like I had graduated from Cheryl’s School of Transformation when I went to her wedding,” Louise says. “It was a last-minute decision. In fact, I surprised her. I had to pick an outfit for the wedding and after party all on my own. I’m still in shock that I actually picked them out by myself.”

Cheryl changed just one thing—a cami that showed off a little more cleavage.

“All I needed was the confidence,” Louise says, “and Cheryl gave it to me.”

Louise Spreads the Joy
Louise’s confidence helped build the business, and she hired Anne Milam and Kwinn Varney, both of Mountain Home, to help her with distribution.

Anne showed up for work in shorts or sweats, sometimes after playing raquetball. No makeup. Glasses.
Louise had news for her.

“Louise told me she used to do the same thing,” Anne remembers. “Finn told her if you get dressed up you will feel special, pretty, and better about yourself, so I thought, damn, I should try that!”

The two went shopping. Louise suggested contacts.

“I always thought that I wouldn’t look good without glasses because of my dark shadows under my eyes,” Anne says. “Once I got contacts and started wearing makeup, it all came together. I hid behind my glasses because I didn’t feel good about myself, but now I have evolved into this empowered, assertive, and independent woman. I love wearing my contacts with my designer Ray Ban sunglasses. It has even affected my relationship with my husband.”

Anne is now such a clothes horse that VSA Chief Financial Officer Lisa Smith, whose office is in Chicago, gave Anne a pair of UGG boots with silver sequins.

“You wouldn’t believe all the comments I get,” Anne says.

It wasn’t long before the jewelry goddesses moved VSA out of Louise’s basement and into a real office, a beautiful office where they show up looking lovely every day and reward their inner goddesses by trying on the new pieces that come in.

“I am so proud of these girls,” Finn says. “They were able to transform this generic space into a beautiful office. They dress every day for work. They have a kitchen stocked with healthy snacks. Every day they laugh…a lot! They are just the cutest. Our accounts adore them. Anne gets on the phone with her Southern charm. Kwinn keeps things in order. Louise is the queen goddess.”

What makes the transformation even more fun is that the VSA office in Mountain home is private. It isn’t open to the public. There is no sign outside. They don’t take walkins. Few people know where they are. They are goddesses for themselves, because they’re worth it.

Kwinn Becomes a Virgin
The highly creative marketing team at VSA had its eye on Kwinn, and it whisked her off to San Miguel de Allende to be a part of its “Who’s Your Virgin?” campaign.

“It was a pretty amazing experience,” Kwinn says. “Hair, makeup, wardrobe. You should have seen the jewelry…and the heels! I was completely drenched in Virgins Saints and Angels jewelry the entire day. I had an absolutely fabulous experience in front of the camera. It was an exhilarating experience all the way around, a lot of fun.”

Finn creates her VSA designs, which are often described as “Celtic meets Gothic Mexican,” to showcase the nature of the divine and to inspire enlightenment, artistic expression, and confidence.

Kwinn’s experience at the photo shoot in Mexico did just that.

“I had one of those aha! moments the day after the photo shoot,” she says, “where I knew deep down that I didn’t have to be a certain way to please anyone but myself. I really dig who I am, I love who I have become, and I know that a lot of it is because of the amazing friends that surround me in my life.”

The crystalized halo behind Kwinn, shown on the cover, is an adornment of many virgins, Finn says.

“Who’s your Virgin? was born out of our need to express the essence behind the jewelry,” she says. “The campaign shows the many ways to wear VSA and reflects the goddess within you. Kwinn is our modern, futuristic, mermaid-type virgin.”

Once Upon a Time for Real
Fairy tales really can come true. ABC invited Finn to create a line of jewelry for its hit television series Once Upon a Time, in which the Evil Queen casts a spell over Fairy Tale Land and all of its characters are stuck in Storybrooke, a small current-day New England town, with no memory of their true selves. At its core, its producers say, it’s a story about hope.

Finn uses Swarovski Elements in two collections for the series—delicate angelic pieces in soft pink and pure white to represent the sensitive vulnerability of Snow White, and edgier gothic pieces in deep red and jet to represent the bold confidence of the Evil Queen.

“We were thrilled to see the Evil Queen in our crown in the second season,” Finn says.

Like all VSA jewelry, the pieces in the two Once Upon a Time collections are designed to wear together in layers. That idea resonates throughout Finn’s all-female company. Although spread out, layered, in Mexico, Arkansas, Illinois, and now Rhode Island, the women feel connected.

“We’ve never met some of them,” Louise says. “Even though we’re not together, it’s like we’re best friends.”

“It’s the jewelry,” Anne says.

“When I wear it,” Kwinn adds, “it’s like a little piece of these two I take with me everywhere.”

For Louise, the Once Upon a Time addition to VSA was serendipitous.

“It is a book of fairy tales, and that is just how I feel every day at work. Is this really real? Pinch me. This jewelry is empowering and reaches out to so many people of all different kinds. All of our pieces have so much thought and creative energy put into them. It makes them so special, which makes me feel special.”

What does the future hold for the goddesses at VSA? Finn is positioning the company to be even more global, with branded stores and more co-branded collections.

“We are going to see more international shipments leaving Arkansas!” she says. “I’m so happy every day to be able to employ all of these wonderful women who seem to love what they do. I hope to have more happy women working for VSA and wearing VSA!”

There is no doubt that our goddesses will live happily ever after. M! June/July 2013

You can find VSA designs locally at Holly’s Jewelry in Mountain Home.